The Expeditions Read Online Free Page A

was the color of his own soul? Reverend Stone hadn’t yet chanced to observe himself, and for that he was grateful.
    He took up his hat and crossed the humid yard. The meetinghouse was an old clapboard building with a steeply pitched roof and squat tower and open belfry, low granite steps leading to a weathered front door. In need of whitewashing yet again, Reverend Stone noted. A dim chill surrounded him as he stepped inside. The meetinghouse smelled faintly of mildew. He shook the wet from his brogans then climbed the back stairs to the vestry, where Edson, the deacon, was bent over a paper-strewn desk figuring sums in a ledger. Edson was a wide, clumsy young man with a shock of corn-tassel hair and thick spectacles that lent him a false appearance of intelligence. Four scratched-out sums showed at the bottom of the page.
    Edson smiled and shook a pinch of blotter powder over the ledger. “Discouraging news from the collection.”
    “A difficult week. There is a torpor in the air, Edson. Do you feel it?”
    Edson nodded uncertainly. “I meant to ask you: did you hear any commotion last night? There’s a fox troubling the chickens. This morning I found the chicken house nearly dug under.”
    Reverend Stone settled into a chair beside the desk and clasped his hands behind his head. “Well, our old friend mister fox! Corletta will be unhappy if there are no chickens to stew.”
    “I mended the planking. I hope it will hold.”
    Reverend Stone nodded. “‘The natural body is an obstruction to the soul or spiritual body.’ Do you believe that statement to be true, Edson?”
    Edson stared, motionless, at the minister. From the road outside a clap of hoofbeats rose then faded.
    “I have often wondered what is meant by that passage.
Obstruction.
A strange choice of words. Yes?”
    “Maybe it means that only after death is the soul truly freed. Maybe that’s what is meant by obstruction.”
    Edson had been raised in Maine, a potato-farm boy with a deep, simple faith that Reverend Stone both scorned and admired. The minister saw him as a child, saying grace over supper at a coarse sawbuck table by the glow of a tallow stub, the pitiless Maine wind prying at the door. Edson had come to Newell when he was fifteen years old.
    “Tell me, Edson: would you say that passage contains heresy?”
    The young man reddened. “No. No, I don’t believe it does.”
    “But our natural body was formed by God! If it obstructs the spiritual body it must be deeply flawed. How could the body, created by Him in His own image, be so imperfect, Edson?”
    “Nothing He created is imperfect.”
    Reverend Stone’s gaze fell to the pen lying atop the blotter, then traveled to Edson’s ink-stained fingertips. Edson folded his hands and placed them in his lap. He said, “Or maybe the author is referring to the natural body’s wants—the sinful wants. They could be viewed as an obstruction.”
    “Perhaps. The sinful wants of the natural body obstructing the sublime aspirations of the spiritual body.” Reverend Stone tapped his index finger against the desk. “Troubling thoughts, Edson. Good, troubling thoughts.”
    He noticed a clothbound volume half-hidden by papers at the desk’s edge, and picked it up: Milton’s
Paradise Lost.
“Excellent, Edson! We must resume our literary discussions. We must contemplate whatever meaning you might find in Milton.”
    “If you think that’s best,” Edson said stoically.
    “Oh, I do. Milton is brimming with troubling thoughts.”
    He rose to leave, then Edson said, “I’d hoped we might speak. About the coming Sunday.”
    Reverend Stone paused.
    “You’d mentioned some while back that you were feeling withery.” Edson drew a breath, then continued. “Of course, you seem perfectly well, but if you have a need for—”
    “You would like to preach this Sunday.”
    Edson nodded. “I’ve been sketching a sermon. I hope you don’t mind.”
    “What is the topic?”
    “Geology and religion.